The saddest thing about The
Life of David Gale is that I agree with its position on the death penalty. It's sad because the movie takes that stance and dumbs it down to the
lowest common denominator and then goes ahead and insults it and the audience
with one final, predictable twist that is entirely contrary to everything that
came before it and should give people of the opposing view a reason to celebrate.
Honestly, the movie is
bad enough without its ultimate, revelatory shot that inadvertently puts such a
negative spin on the opponents of capital punishment as to potentially have an
incredibly adverse effect on future debates surrounding the issue. Take note opponents of opponents of the death penalty: The
Life of David Gale does not speak for everyone who opposes capital
punishment. Even so, on a dramatic
level, the movie is also failure. It's
manipulative, overblown, clichéd, and features banal and script-driven
character arcs. It's the type of
preaching the choir would walk out on.

New York
journalist Bitsey (yes, Bitsey) Bloom (Kate Winslet) has recently spent time in
prison on a contempt of court charge for protecting sources in a child
pornography article. It's a
double-edged sword for her: her journalistic integrity is obvious but she also
protected perverts. For some reason,
this causes a problem when a new story comes up. Bitsey is asked to interview Dr. David Gale (Kevin Spacey), a formerly
outspoken death penalty opponent who is ironically now on death row for the rape
and murder of a fellow activist named Constance Hallaway (Laura Linney). Because of the debacle in her recent past, her editor decides that
perhaps a woman on her own would not be the best choice to interview this man.
Why? Because it gives an
excuse to send along the intern Zack (Gabriel Mann). So she heads down to Texas where Gale relates his admiration for her objectivity and integrity and begins
to tell the story of how he was once at the top of his field and the events that
slowly brought him down.

The flashbacks are cut into the
present narrative with an annoying camera move in which the entire room spins
upside-down while flashes of text appear on screen. That's probably the least obnoxious thing about the movie, and what
accounts for the rest of it is primarily due to the predictable, gimmicky, and
hamfisted screenplay by Charles Randolph. Everything
about the script as it plays out on screen reeks of the omnipotent force of
someone behind the action trying to get from point A to point B, even if it
means heading out into point W, X, and sometimes Y territory. Hell, some of it isn't anywhere near the alphabetical
chart. Randolph institutes such tired tricks as the car that breaks down at the most
inopportune moment, the cellular phone that's out of range, the late
revelation of a terminal illness, and a missing piece of evidence that could
clear everything up. The movie even
travels to David Lynch country with an enigmatic, ubiquitous cowboy who must
have planted some sort of global positioning device on Bitsey and Zack.

Where Randolph really falls flat is in his characterizations and presentation of the issue at
hand. The cast is left dangling with
forced development and incredibly awkward scenes that try to clear everything up.
Kate Winslet is wasted with the
obligatory role of the person must undergo a transition from supporter to
detractor, and her scenes of realization are inherently false. Poor Kevin Spacey gives away too much too soon by playing Gale as the
smuggest man to be four days away from his execution. Gale's story is vital to putting the larger issue in a personal
context, but it is so calculating and simplistic that it's laughable. Same goes for the discussion of capital
punishment. The movie throws out facts, like that there are more inmates per capita
in Texas than in China and that most religions oppose the death penalty, but the other side is
determinably silent. There are
moments, but they're slanted. There's
the governor, who in the midst of the debate is trapped into being compared to
Hitler. Then at the end, after
we've learned the important parts of the truth, people from the other side
begin to talk. The thing is that,
within the context of what's happening, they're wrong.

The
Life of David Gale
undermines an important issue facing our country today. It's terribly manipulative, sensationalistic, and one-sided, and it
isn't going to change anyone's mind on the topic. Here's an idea, though. We
know Gale is innocent from the start; he has to be. Wouldn't a more challenging approach be taken and a better statement
made if he were guilty? Think about it. It would ask the audience to do
some actual evaluation. Is this
man's life worth the price of the crime he committed? Instead, the filmmakers assume that they have to do all the thinking for
us.